scholarly journals Radical right-wing parties in Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Rydgren
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
National Security ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
The People ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Pertinent Feature

Abstract In this paper I discuss, critically, the literature on populism and the extent to which it applies to the contemporary radical right-wing parties in Europe. These parties are often – and increasingly – referred to as populist parties. I argue that it is misleading to label these parties ‘populist parties’, since populism is not the most pertinent feature of this party family. These parties are mainly defined by ethnic nationalism, and not a populist ideology. In their discourse they are primarily preoccupied with questions pertaining to national identity and national security – and their ‘negative’ doubles immigration, multiculturalism, Islamist threat – and they consistently pit ‘the people’ mainly against elites that they view as responsible for a cultural and political threat against their idealized image of their nation state. The ethnic nationalism of European radical right-wing parties is more important for their discourse and tends to influence the populist elements.

Constitutionalizing Sophisticated Racism: Israel's Proposed Nationality Law

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 40-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amal Jamal
Keyword(s):  
External Factors ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Internal And External Factors ◽  
Nationality Law

This essay analyzes the political motivations behind the Jewish Nation-State Bill introduced in the Knesset in November 2014, shedding light on the ascendancy of the Israeli political establishment's radical right wing. It argues that there were both internal and external factors at work and that it is only by examining these thoroughly that the magnitude of the racist agenda currently being promoted can be grasped. The essay also discusses the proposed legislation's long history and the implications of this effort to constitutionalize what amounts to majoritarian despotism in present-day Israel.

How and Why the Populist Radical Right Persuades Citizens

2019 ◽  
pp. 813-837
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ivarsflaten ◽  
Scott Blinder ◽  
Lise Bjånesøy
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Large Share ◽  
The Past ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Party Family ◽  
Established Democracies

The “populist radical right” is a contested concept in scholarly work for good reason. This chapter begins by explaining that the political parties usually grouped together under this label are not a party family in a conventional sense and do not self-identify with this category. It goes on to show how political science scholarship has established that in Europe during the past thirty or so years we have seen the rise of a set of parties that share a common ideological feature—nativism. The nativist political parties experiencing most electoral support have combined their nativist agenda with some other legitimate ideological companion, which provides deniability—a shield against charges that the nativist agenda makes the parties and their supporters right-wing extremist and undemocratic. The chapter goes on to explain that in order to make progress on our understanding of how and why the populist radical right persuades citizens, we need to recognize: first, that nativism is the only necessary ingredient without which the populist radical right loses its force; and second, that nativism in contemporary established democracies has tended not to persuade a large share of voters without an ideological companion.

scholarly journals Radical right populist politics in Hungary: Reinventing the Magyars through sport

2019 ◽  
pp. 101269021989165
Author(s):  
Gyozo Molnar ◽  
Stuart Whigham
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
North America ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Academic Interest ◽  
Political Actors

Given the contemporary growth of ‘populist’ political parties and movements in a number of highly developed democratic states in Europe and North America, there has been a resurgence in academic interest around the various causes for the groundswell of support for political populism. Given this broader political context, this paper explores the interconnection between sport and populist politics in Hungary, with a particular emphasis on the appropriation of sport by ‘right-wing’ populist political actors. In particular, this paper will examine the politics–sport interconnection by discussing how the Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor Orbán, uses football, and sport more broadly, and the ways in which the Hungarian government have attempted to reinvent a strong nation and national identity through sport and related political populism. These attempts have been influenced by the interaction between forces of Westernisation and the country’s continuing post-communist transition, with the view to (re)inventing the Hungarian nation.

The Nation State of the Jewish People's Basic Law: A Threshhold of Elimination?

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmad H. Sa'di
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Policy Effects ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
The Law

The Nation State of the Jewish People's basic law, passed in July 2018, constitutes a landmark in the evolution of Israel's settler-colonial nationalism and self-presentation. The law underscores the shift Israel has made from aligning itself with the Western liberal order to embracing, even spearheading, a radical right-wing populist worldview. The Jewish exclusivity and racism that the law embodies, I argue, did not result from changes in Israel's political and demographic landscape in the last two decades. Rather their genesis could be traced back to the debates which took place soon after Israel's establishment. Since then the desire for Jewish exclusivity has not dwindled but had been masqueraded through ideas of Israel's inimitability. The article discusses the mutations of these debates and their legal and policy effects.

scholarly journals Liberal Illiberalism? The Reshaping of the Contemporary Populist Radical Right in Northern Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 112-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Moffitt
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Populist Radical Right ◽  
The People ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Do So

Populism, particularly in its radical right-wing variants, is often posited as antithetical to the principles of liberalism. Yet a number of contemporary cases of populist radical right parties from Northern Europe complicate this characterisation of populism: rather than being directly opposed to liberalism, these parties selectively reconfigure traditionally liberal defences of discriminated-against groups—such as homosexuals or women—in their own image, positing these groups as part of ‘the people’ who must be protected, and presenting themselves as defenders of liberty, free speech and ‘Enlightenment values’. This article examines this situation, and argues that that while populist radical right parties in Northern Europe may only invoke such liberal values to opportunistically attack their enemies—in many of these cases, Muslims and ‘the elite’ who allegedly are abetting the ‘Islamisation’ of Europe’—this discursive shift represents a move towards a ‘liberal illiberalism’. Drawing on party manifestoes and press materials, it outlines the ways in which these actors articulate liberal illiberalism, the reasons they do so, and the ramifications of this shift.

The Clash of Nationalisms

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Ahmadi
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
State Building ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Linguistic Minority ◽  
Ethnic Nationalism ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Systematic Response

While it is true that Iran is composed of various religious-linguistic minority groups, making ethnicity an issue worth studying, Iran has specific features that differentiate it from other societies that have more recent experience in political heritage and the nation-state-building process. Bearing the characteristics of ancient nations, as some theorists of ethnicity and nationalism have elaborated, Iran represents a specific historical case in which the saliency of nationalism and an Iranian national identity is more remarkable than that of ethnicity and ethnic nationalism. The present study of Iranian Azeris and Iran-Azerbaijan Republic relations can shed more light on this fact. This chapter argues that Iranian Azeris have produced the most enduring and systematic response to the Azerbaijan Republic’s pan-Turkist irredentist and ethnic nationalist claims.

Minoritization and Pluralization

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 116-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanildo A. Burity
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Unintended Effect ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
William Connolly ◽  
Definition Of

The emergence of Pentecostalism on the Brazilian scene has raised new questions about the way religion relates to the definition of a “people,” how religious minorities can be politically and legally integrated into the mainstream of national identity, and to what degree the state-religion relation is constitutive of society in a context of increasing sociocultural, religious, and political pluralization. The argument draws on the concept of minoritization proposed by William Connolly, against the background of Laclau’s problematic of the formation of a people as a hegemonic actor. An analysis of Pentecostal discourse on “the public” and “the people” reveals that Pentecostalism minoritized itself in response to perceived exclusion and this accentuated pluralization within it. An unintended effect of this logic was the fluidity of the boundary between sacred and profane, religious and secular. In a context of growing cultural, social, and political pluralization, these discursive practices have the potential to lead either to the aggiornamento of Pentecostalism or to the regressive closing of a populist right-wing discourse.A emergência pentecostal na cena pública brasileira tem colocado novas questões quanto à forma como a religião se relaciona à definição de um “povo,” como as minorias religiosas podem ser politica e legalmente integradas ao filão principal da identidade nacional, e em que medida a relação entre religião e estado é constitutiva da sociedade, num contexto de crescente pluralização socio-cultural, religiosa e política. O argumento desenvolve-se em torno do conceito de minoritização proposto por William Connolly, com base na problemática laclauniana da formação do povo como ator hegemônico. Uma análise do discurso pentecostal sobre “o público” e “o povo” revela que os pentecostais minoritizaram-se em resposta a uma percepção de exclusão e que a minoritização acentua a pluralização no interior do pentecostalismo. Um efeito não-pretendido dessa lógica é a fluidificação da fronteira entre sagrado e profano, religioso e secular. Num contexto de crescente pluralização cultural, social e política, essas práticas discursivas têm o potencial de aprofundarem o aggiornamento do pentecostalismo ou de seu fechamento regressivo num discurso populista de direita.

scholarly journals IMPACT OF THE DEMOGRAPHIC SITUATION ON REGIONAL SECURITY

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 1539-1543
Author(s):  
Nikolay Katsarski
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
National Security ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Natural Reproduction ◽  
The People ◽  
Working Age

Demographic security is an aspect of security, which is defined as a sustainable state of the nation, where natural reproduction and population growth is guaranteed and no violent change of self-awareness and national identity is allowed in any form. A broad understanding of security from the point of view of society is formulated as a state of society in which the risks and threats of existence and development are met systematically, are met in all the elements of society. "Demographic security may be the most important element of national security, as it is linked to the nation's" subject "- the people living in the nation state. Obviously, what is the state of demographic security will, to a great extent, be the state of national security of a country. It could be considered "as a state of society in which it is able to accumulate the reproductive power of the population necessary for preserving the nation, ensuring the preservation and development of national integrity and the national identity of the people and communities living in the state. And each of these theories and formulations could only exist if there were separate "demographic units". The importance of demographic status can be compared to whether a nation will exist or not, with the revival or death of a nation. That is why the demographic problem has real repercussions on the whole development of the state. The declining population leads to a weakening in both political and economic terms. The total depopulation of territories leads to a reduction in the working age population, which would mean lack of staff in the most important development areas - education, medicine, police, army. Prerequisites for the security of each country are its internal stability, the existence of a democratic political system, social protection, a developed economy. National security also depends on relations with neighboring countries, on the objective consideration of geopolitical conditions, on optimal participation in deepening integration processes, security is a function of a number of internal and external factors. State security means the existence of an effective mechanism for the management and coordination of the public groups and political forces, as well as the active institutions for their protection. The mentioned structural elements, interacting with the security environment, form conditionally two components of the national security - internal and external.

scholarly journals Nationalistic attitudes and voting for the radical right in Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Lubbers ◽  
Marcel Coenders
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Voting Behaviour ◽  
National Interests ◽  
National Pride ◽  
Mass Migration ◽  
Political Distrust ◽  
Identity Threats

Voting for radical right-wing parties has been associated most strongly with national identity threats. In Europe, this has been framed by the radical right in terms of mass-migration and European integration, or other politicians bargaining away national interests. Perhaps surprisingly given the radical right’s nationalist ideology, nationalistic attitudes are hardly included in empirical research on the voting behaviour. In this contribution, we test to what extent various dimensions of nationalistic attitudes affect radical right voting, next to the earlier and new assessed effects of perceived ethnic threat, social distance to Muslims, Euroscepticism and political distrust. The findings show that national identification, national pride and an ethnic conception of nationhood are additional explanations of radical right voting. National identification’s effect on radical right voting is found to be stronger when populations on average perceive stronger ethnic threat.

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